Components

1 8-page full size rulebook
1 22” x 28” large-hex map of “the country in and around the Mexican Basin in 1426”
255 die-cut counters
1 plastic box

Counter Manifest

45 Chalco units (blue)
43 Mexica units (brown)
45 Acolhuacan units (green)
40 Tlahuican units (sand)
40 Tepanecapan units (khaki)
40 Tlateputzco units (yellow)
6 randomizer chits (white)
1 turn marker
8 blanks (4 brown, 2 blue, 2 green)

SimCan says:

“The One World is a low-complexity strategic board game of the Aztec world before the arrival of the Spanish. Two to six players may play, each controlling a major tribal nation of the Mexican basin in an attempt to dominate, religiously, politically, and militarily, the Aztec world. Special rules cover deities and assassins.”

The Reviewers say:

“I constantly marvel at the willingness of Steve Newberg and his SimCan company to tackle subjects that no one wants to go near. I think that is, unequivocally, marvelous ... I also constantly marvel at the ability of SimCan to take interesting subjects such as these and make absolutely nothing out of them. In a way, they are alchemists: they turn intrigue into ennui and fascination into fatuousness. The One World is a stultifying snore with practically no interest to any but the most naive gamer, and the game has even less insight into its subject.” --Richard Berg in S&T 97

“[I]t has been my observation that there are players who like diplomatic games and there are players who like complex simulations, but the number who really enjoy games like this one which strongly emphasize both are rather rare. For the pure diplomatic type of player, there is too much complexity and game length for it to be enjoyable whereas for the simulation player, the game is too much bound up in diplomacy to be enjoyable when what they really want to do is win by virtue of having the best strategy and tactics. ... Considering this issue, the obscure topic, the fact that players will be dropping out early from this game which tends to run rather long and the aforementioned rule/reality problems, it is not surprising that it has never been a big seller. The game is probably mostly of interest for those who are already strongly interested in the place and period - already because the game does not add a rich level of historical detail - who like multi-player games like Russian Civil War (SPI), A Mighty Fortress (SPI) and Holy Roman Empire (3W), and are willing to work with the rules and deal maturely with the diplomacy.” --Rick Heli on the Internet

Collectors Notes

Boone lists low, high and average prices of 4/15/8.00 at auction and 9/20/14.00 for sale.

Comments

This is indeed an odd game, and is still the only design on the subject. I wanted to like it, but the graphic unimpressiveness of the components and map (and for SimCan, that’s saying something) and the blandness of what players get to do during the game make it difficult. A player can get to the marching and fighting only after a blizzard of die rolls to check whether his leader dies, whether every city he controls stays loyal or not, whether a natural disaster occurs (which just means he loses a few strength points), and allocating units to the “Flower Wars.” This last could be interesting, as it was apparently a form of ritualized warfare designed to yield prisoners for the human sacrifices necessary to the Aztec religion, but the rule as written is just another die roll and gives no benefit for winning -- the opponent (randomly assigned at that) only loses in that he is deprived of a couple of strength points, at least until his next chance to recruit. Meanwhile, the game’s time and space scales are sorely mismatched. In his admittedly caustic review, Richard Berg calculated that the furthest an army could march in one five-year turn was 100 miles (there’s no ground scale given, but the Mexican Basin is only so big and there is a limitation of 20 hexes per turn).

Errata

None in the SimCan Newsletter.

Steve Newberg says:

This was Peter Hollinger’s final design work for us. He only partly finished it and I tried to do the rest. The idea was to have a simple game that reflected the main aspects of what was, and remains, a totally alien culture. I don’t think I did a great save. All of the elements are there, but they did not seem to jell as completely as I would have liked. In the end, it is a pretty good Beer & Pretzels game with the external gloss of the Aztec world before Spain arrived on the scene, but not a lot more than that.